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Arular has been on the stereo all year, but I'd yet to see M.I.A. do it live, except on TV (which doesn't work at all). Still, before the gig there were doubts: Would it be busy? Would the kids be into it? Would her international slang get lost in translation? But with the internet and file sharing, artists like M.I.A. can break worldwide without even selling any records - as she's keen to point out. The 1,000+ capacity Phoenix Theatre is rammed and the diverse crowd includes a fair few Tamils, who make up a sizeable minority in Toronto. We're whipped into life by some decent rhymes from the support act, who may or may not have been Spankrock, but who was definitely wearing the coolest glow in the dark baseball cap ever. He's followed by a pretty handy DJ set from Diplo. But it's his partner in crime who we're here to see, and when she finally arrives she blows the roof off. She's virtually invented a new language, yet the crowd still know every word. She looks amazing in her self-made outfits. The stage backdrops twinkle and, yes, she designed them too. Playing Arular almost in its entirety, every song and every skit fizzes like a shaken-up can of cherry cola. Bucky Done Gun, Fire Fire and Bingo are all despatched effortlessly and energetically, and the whole room is bouncing. Any fears that Toronto might not "get it" are long forgotten. The highlight is a non-album moment, when she improvises over Dead Prez's seminal Hip Hop, with the new lyrics "you might be a follower, but who's your leader?" There's also the inevitable, awesome Galang to contend with. Near the end she confides that she's suffering from flu ("a big shout out for Lemsip" baffles the locals). If this is M.I.A. under the weather, god knows what she's like at full strength.
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books  books and comics archive Author interviews and reviews from 2002 to 2008. film  film archive The best of cinema in the UK from 2002 to 2008. |
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